Complications:Pro-Ocean Life: Barricuda agrees wholeheartedly with Sea Devil’s ideals concerning Atlantis’ dealings with the surface world (that they should invade the surface world and make it part of the Atlantean Empire).

Weakness: Barracuda, like all other Atlanteans, can suffer from dehydration if he doesn’t periodically immerse himself in water. If he doesn’t he then suffers a -1 to all physical abilities every 4 minutes until he can submerge himself.

Complications:Pro-Ocean Life: Narwhale agrees wholeheartedly with Sea Devil’s ideals concerning Atlantis’ dealings with the surface world (that they should invade the surface world and make it part of the Atlantean Empire).

Weakness: Narwhale, like all other Atlanteans, can suffer from dehydration if she doesn’t periodically immerse herself in water. If she doesn’t she then suffers a -1 to all physical abilities every 4 minutes until she can submerge himself.

Complications:Pro-Ocean Life: Bloodtide agrees wholeheartedly with Sea Devil’s ideals concerning Atlantis’ dealings with the surface world (that they should invade the surface world and make it part of the Atlantean Empire).

Weakness: Bloodtide, like all other Atlanteans, can suffer from dehydration if she doesn’t periodically immerse herself in water. If she doesn’t she then suffers a -1 to all physical abilities every 4 minutes until she can submerge herself.

Complications:Quirk~Mentally Unbalanced: Paintball isn’t right in the head, it’s unknown if it’s due to his powers or he had this problem before they emerged. Either way he is prone to fits of anger if things don’t go his way or else he is laughing it up at the trouble he is causing.

Quirk ~Causing Trouble: Paintball is fascinated with causing panic in groups of people. The more a crowd of people yell and scream the more he’ll laugh it up and do as much as he can to keep people panicking.

Weakness: Paintball is vulnerable to substances that thin/dilute paint (turpentine/paint thinner/ect) and being covered in it for more than a round will cause him to suffer a -1 Penalty to Stamina per minute until he can get it off of his body.

Background: Paintball’s past before appearing at a local art show in Liberty Park to rob the artists there who were there selling their work isn’t known. What is known is that he seems to be mentally unstable and likes to cause a panic, in fact he stayed longer than he should have to indulge this fascination of his and paid for it by fighting Sean O’Toole and Jenna Walters (also known as Sundial and Black) from the Albright Institute’s Generation program.

While Jenna suffered some minor injuries, Sean managed to defeat Paintball after a small back and forth that left the criminal with a serious need of burn treatment for the majority of his body once it was all said and done.

Complications:Motivation ~Power Lust: Sulemain is driven to take control of the world through the secrets of Sacred Geometry that have been hidden or lost through the ages.

Power Loss: Sulemain will lose the use of his Sacred Geometry Magic when he is unable to make the needed gestures.

Background: Sulemain was once an archeologist and amateur as Lemuel Druitt who was obsessed with esoteric mystical traditions and the secret history of Freemasonry. His largest goal in life was to excavate Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, Masonry’s most revered site. While working one night alone in 1934, Druitt unearthed a series of secret chambers in the foundation of the temple. The ancient rooms, undisturbed for thousands of years, contained numerous tomes detailing the temple’s construction and ancient secrets of the world’s nature. In the deepest chamber, which was protected by several devious traps, was the Goetia Cask, a small brass vessel containing the spirits of 72 demons imprisoned within it by King Solomon himself.

Rapt by the realization of his life’s work, Druitt claimed the Cask as his own, declaring himself Solomon’s living reincarnation. He sealed the chambers and set about studying the texts and scrolls to decode their secrets. He became convinced that the Earth and everything on it followed the dictates of “Sacred Geometry”, a sort of esoteric mathematical formulae. Druitt reasoned that if he could master it then he would be able to control anyone or anything, years later Druitt emerged from the Temple of Solomon clothed in ancient garb, now calling himself Sulemain. With the power of the Goetia Cask Sulemain and the magic he'd discovered in Sacred Geometry he embarked on a tour of the world’s great museums and libraries, looting them of gems, relics and manuscripts related to his numerological quest. Throughout the 1930s several heroes thwarted the wizard’s plans, and while Sulemain often battled the likes of Eldrich, Doc Prophet and John Danger, he reserved a especial hatred of Danger who along with his Jungle Patrol were Sulemain’s most frequent foes.

Eventually Sulemain once again faced the Jungle Patrol and Eldrich when he pierced the legendary Sphinx of Egypt, attempting to gain access to a hidden library it held. While Sulemain was able to cast several volumes into the Goetia Cask, he was also cast into the magical vessel and trapped in the nether void within it. Eldrich being drained from the fight wasn’t able to argue his point effectively enough to stop Danger from taking the Cask as a trophy of the fight. For years the Cask set in his private collection and long after his passing, then his grandchildren, who were unaware of what was held within it, allowed the Cask to be taken as part of an Egyptian exhibit to be set up in the Hunter Museum of Natural History. It was there that the Cask came into contact with Martin Jones, one of several people employed to handle the arranging of the exhibit. Sulemain had spent his time in the Cask developing his abilities and was able to mentally dominate Jones and forced him to steal the Cask and return home.

Since then Martin Jones has been missing and Sulemain has recently made his return to his goal of investigating the same secrets that fueled him decades ago. He has no respect for ancient art as a thing unto itself and will destroy an ancient sculpture to discover the secret texts that are hidden within it. Sulemain also tends to deal very directly with any kind of superhuman interference, whatever will remove them from hindering him is what he’ll do so that he can continue on his quest. If using Paimon’s Binding will work he’ll use that, or if using his telekinesis to hurl a hero out of his way and through a wall or two then he’ll do that with just as much distracted effort. He tends to be thinking of how best to use the item in question before he has possession of it and is always lost in thought of how he will use his newfound power.

Complications:Racist: Johnny Reb will never cooperate with nor assist non-white individuals and holds African Americans in low regard. He will always have something to say about their ‘inherent inferiority’ and will attack a non-white foe over a white opponent, even if doing so puts him at a tactical disadvantage.

Southern Gentleman: Johnny Reb will often challenge a foe to one on one combat to ‘prove the measure of a man’. He despises cheats and will not strike a (white) man whose back is turned to him and will only attack women if they attack him first.

Weakness: Johnny Reb takes additional damage from items that have the Holy/Divine descriptor.

Background: Johnny Reb is one of the oldest, active super criminals in the world. He got his start in 1864, when a wizard initiated a ritual that bonded a demonic spirit from the underworld to the body of a young southern soldier. Claiming that he would not leave the plane ‘until the Union fell’, the newly created Johnny Reb was a tireless soldier with a fire of self determination that led the Confederate army in some of the most bloody and brutal conflicts in the Civil War. He was never made part of the Knights of the Confederacy, the South's gathering of uniquely skilled/powered people, his radical and outspoken nature made him an ill fit for that group and those in command knew that Johnny would never truly follow Achilles. Though several times members of the Knights would be present at conflicts where Johnny was active and he was familiar with both them and the members of the Patriot Regiment. Both Columbia and the Lion-Man both regarded Johnny Reb as one of the Regiment’s greater foes and both made expended great amounts of effort of ending Johnny’s threat, though they never were able to deal him a total defeat.

That task fell to Adam Prophet, who’d managed to learn the truth of Johnny’s creation and had come up with a way to defeat the demon inside the man thanks to his family’s journals on matters of the supernatural. In the end it was a sanctified, solid gold bullet that Prophet shot into the head of the possessed man, ending the threat of Johnny Reb to the Union and bound the demon to it’s host’s corpse. But Johnny’s body never decomposed however (due to the presence of the demon’s spirit inside it) and members of a secret society, that was the beginning of the Brimstone House, took possession of his body and used the power of the demon bound inside it to fuel many of their rituals that were used to help them solidify their power base. Around the late 1970s a lesser member of the House, Emilio Durrock, wanted the power that was attributed to the bound demon and preformed a ritual that allowed him to remove the gold bullet lodged in Johnny Reb’s skull. The demon spurted from the wound, quickly dominating Emilio and transforming the lesser mage into it’s newest host, letting Johnny Reb live again.

Johnny used Durrock’s connections to create the Incorruptible Society, a gathering of men and women of political and social influence who agreed with Johnny’s outdated ideals. Together they sponsored and organized a series of lynchings and murders of several civil rights activists that went on for over a year. Johnny concocted a fanciful costume sure to gain the attention of the media, which he thought would help to spread his message of hate, hastening the fall of the nation. Instead it gained him the attention of the likes of the Black Avenger, the third Arrow, and the Eye of Justice who came together to deal with his menace. A long battle left the Incorruptible Society scattered and Emilio Durrock in a coma, the demon trapped within his barely alive (but immobile and useless) body. Johnny Reb’s body was put under watch by various government groups (FBI, AEGIS and such) but with his condition being what it is they didn’t want to chance his being used by other mystically skilled criminals by placing him in a prison hospital and they left him in a secluded hospital for care.

For several decades Johnny Reb, in Durrock’s body, seemed to no longer be a threat. But a year ago Johnny Reb somehow returned to the world of super criminals; somehow managing to get a new host and having reformed the Incorruptible Society Johnny then set to the task of recruiting 'right-minded superhumans' to his cause, dubbing them the Knights of the New Confederacy. Today Johnny Reb and his Knights are wanted for dozens acts of domestic terrorism as they go all over the United States trying to 'put things right'.

Complications:Fame: All of the members of the Freedom League are very well-known.

Family: A few years ago Johnny gained custody of a baby cloned from his DNA he named Jenni.

Enemies: Johnny’s got a few; the Thieves’ Guild, Doctor Simian, Downtime just to name some of them.

Identity: Johnny’s identity is public knowledge.

Motivation ~Responsibility: Johnny is strongly invested in using his powers his powers for good and not bringing shame to the heroic legacy established by his grandfather

Prejudice: Johnny is gay and sometimes faces discrimination because of it.

Responsibility: Johnny is a member of the Freedom League.

Background: The fast life of Johnny Rocket has changed a fair amount in the last few years, he’s become a single father following a plot by Doctor Simian to create a speedster that would be under his control. When everything was said and done the clone girl (because for some reason Simian thought a woman would be easier to manipulate….) had been de-aged to an infant, about four years old from what the Atom Family could tell from tests they ran, and Johnny dropped the child off to children’s services. Two days later they contacted him to see if he’d care to adopt Jenni (as Johnny had named her), as she still possessed her superspeed powers and the caretakers in children’s services were hard pressed to deal with such a child.

After much thought and a long talk with Lady Liberty, Johnny agreed to adopt Jenni. There was some public outcry, similar to when Johnny had been outed as a gay man, but the League issued a public statement supporting him as did the Sentinels and the Champions. With that kind of public support, along with the support of his family, Johnny had a special interview with Channel 5’s Charles Maxfield to talk about his new-found parenthood along with his worries, concerns and hopes for his new daughter. Between Johnny’s open and friendly manner along with a few segments of him playing with Jenni (granted they were slowed down so that the naked eye could follow them) public opinion quickly swung in his favor. Johnny has lessened some of his duties as a hero so that he can spend time with Jenni and he has the best possible baby sitters in the current generation of Danger family when Bolt and Relentless are unable to watch Jenni.

Johnny has gotten serious about settling down now that he‘s got a family, not wanting to raise a child on his own and perhaps due to the influence of his married teammates showing what a solid relationship can do for a person in his line of work. So far he’s been traveling all around the country for dates set up online or through friends and while he’s met some nice people he’s still looking.

During all this Johnny organized the first ever Dash for Charity; bringing together Rush from Bay City, Speed Demon from New York and local speedsters Relentless and Bolt to compete in a race across the country, with stopping points in New York, Chicago, Arcadia, and Bay City with the end point being in Freedom City the winner would be able to donate the proceeds raised by the race to the charity of their choice.

Of course with such highly publicized event problems were going to happen; Downtime, Trailblaze, Overrun from the Order of Chaos, and Fullbore of the Masters of Speed all crashed the event. Rather than start a fight and ruin the event entirely, it was decided to allow them to compete, despite the fast moving criminals statements that they would keep the money for themselves. Ultimately, the villains proved to be more of hassle to one another as Fullbore and Trailblaze’s efforts to eliminate Johnny, Speed Demon and Rush were countered or redirected and eventually ended up keeping them both and Overrun from finishing the race. Downtime on the other hand ran a fair race for the most part, even going as far as to give Johnny a one-time bit of assistance in dealing with Fullbore, for which Johnny invited him to the victory party that followed the race (they might be long-time enemies but Johnny was willing to reward the one bit of good behavior Downtime had done, and Downtime isn’t one to turn away free alcohol). Unfortunately Fullbore, Trailblaze, and Overrun got away before AEGIS could catch up to them none the worse for wear aside from a few bruises and in some cases minor burns.

So even though things have changed in Johnny’s life some things haven’t changed that much at all.

Since the number of builds I have left to do are winding down I figured it might be a good idea to go back and look over all of the earlier 3rd edition builds I'd done when the system first came out and make whatever tweeks and adjustments might need to be done. So first off was Johnny Rocket.

I pulled some things from Thorpacolypse's Flash builds that I thought fit Johnny well and show things he's developed over the years. I wanted to increase the PL of the different members of the Freedom League to show they're among some of the top heroes of the world, so there will be updates for other members coming as well.

Last edited by Tattooedman on Mon Sep 17, 2012 11:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

Little Fish In The Big Pond: Downtime has serious potential as a villain but for right now his way of thinking keeps him acting as hired muscle for others or pulling simple robberies for himself.

Background: In the works....

Like my Johnny Rocket build I went back and did some work on Downtime. Nothing major but now that I have a better understanding of powers in 3rd edition and I saw things that just didn't make sense in my original build for Downtime that needed to be corrected. So a couple quick edits later and here he is, a bit leaner and should be more of threat to heroes.

Its always interesting to see your takes on the Freedomverse characters, T-Man. I like seeing how they contrast with the few official 3E builds of those characters we've seen so far.

For example, your Johnny Rocket is a PL higher than theirs, but with 4 ranks less Speed. Most everything else is pretty similar, though they gave him a neat little mechanic that lowers his attack against characters ahead of him in initiative order. The thing I like most about M&M is seeing how two different people can build varied, but equally valid, interpretations of the same character.

Arthur Eld wrote:Its always interesting to see your takes on the Freedomverse characters, T-Man. I like seeing how they contrast with the few official 3E builds of those characters we've seen so far.

For example, your Johnny Rocket is a PL higher than theirs, but with 4 ranks less Speed. Most everything else is pretty similar, though they gave him a neat little mechanic that lowers his attack against characters ahead of him in initiative order. The thing I like most about M&M is seeing how two different people can build varied, but equally valid, interpretations of the same character.

Thanks Arthur I try to give the established characters a bit of something interesting. But you know what's bad? I've got the 3rd edition stats of Johnny and totally forgot about it until you mentioned it, I might have to go back and do another edit and I'll definately look over the other listed members of the Freedom League before I post whatever reworkings I'm going to do.

I know it was probably coincidence, but theres some hillarious Irony in following one of the most virulaently racist and homphobic villains in the freedomverse with one of its most public and popular openly gay heroes.

Dr. Silverback has wryly observed that this is like trying to teach lolcats about Shakespeare

catsi563 wrote:I know it was probably coincidence, but theres some hillarious Irony in following one of the most virulaently racist and homphobic villains in the freedomverse with one of its most public and popular openly gay heroes.

catsi563 wrote:I know it was probably coincidence, but theres some hillarious Irony in following one of the most virulaently racist and homphobic villains in the freedomverse with one of its most public and popular openly gay heroes.

Complications:Life’s a Game: Esper is so used to being able to read any mind she wants, there is little that people can do that surprises her. She tends to treat most threats as a joke and acts like she’s completely in control of any situation.

Normal Life: Esper’s identity as Sandra Croft isn’t known to any law enforcement agencies.

Responsibility: Esper is now the headmistress of the Shadow Academy and is answerable to the Labyrinth as to the progress of the various teens there being trained.

Background: The Croft family has been working for Taurus and the Labyrinth for several generations, it's just that the current member of the Croft family, Sandra, actually knows what the Labyrinth is about. Both her father and grandfather were professional thieves, the cat burgler variety to be specific, who would steal from whoever or wherever they were told. Both men had a reputation for having 'a knack' for spotting and avoiding traps and security systems as well as being able to memorize maps with only a few moments worth of studying them and were Taurus' favored thieves as they had shown the ability to accomplish their jobs without alerting the authorities.

When Sandra born, her father went into semi-retirement though that meant that he'd started to train younger thieves in Taurus' employ (but every once in a while there was an important job that called for the senior Croft's experience and he'd suit up and head out). Once Sandra was old enough she was included in the classes as well and eventually she would help to teach them, what she didn't share with anyone however was the fact that she had also developed the latent psionic abilities of the family as well. But here’s were much more powerful than those of her father or grandfather; while they would be considered low-level espers, Sandra was a fully talented esper in her own right. Able to read other people's minds, project realistic illusions that could fool the senses of people who saw them, even mentally dominate others to do as she wanted them to do. Deciding to freelance somewhat to help her family out Sandra carefully entered into the world of supercrime but with a style and manner all her own, using her powers to convince a young man she'd seduce that worked at a jewelry store to steal certain gems himself then simply give them over to her before removing any memory the poor clerk had of her. Or causing a causing an armored car driver to crash the vehicle in reaction to an illusion of her own creation then Sandra would simply cast an illusion to hide herself from view as she telekinetically picked the locks and took what she wanted from inside the overturned vehicle.

After working this way for several years Sandra had managed to keep herself out of jail and still had yet to deal with any actual super heroes, a fact she was extremely proud of. That was until agents of the Labyrinth showed up on her doorstep, and despite her attempts to mentally sway otherwise, put her inside a blacked out SUV and took her for a ride that seemed to go on forever. Eventually she was brought before Ms. Scarlet and Eliza Brandt, a.k.a. the Headmistress of the Shadow Academy, and the two older women made Sandra an offer: become one of the instructors at the Shadow Academy: teaching some students how to be better a stealth and infiltration, while teaching certain others on how to mange and develop their powers, or else disappear from the world.

Sandra's choice was easy and quick. Later that day she was at the Shadow Academy being given a tour by the Headmistress no less and introduced to her first team of trainees. Over the following years Sandra trained several members of the various teams of teen super criminals, though none of them became part of the Alpha team (which was the Headmistress' pet project). Sandra also engaged in several discreet conflicts with some of her peers at the Academy (which all eventually ended with Sandra winning and her former rival strangely disappearing). She even secretly encouraged the Headmistress' own daughter, Shadowbox, who was also a member of the Alpha Team, so that the young girl would eventually turn against her mother. That event finally came to happen during what has been called the "Free-for-all-Final", where members of the Alpha Team kidnapped the members of the Next-Gen to prove they were ready to graduate into the underworld on their own, when during the last few moments of the rescue attempt by Bolt and other students from Claremont Academy had thrown everything into chaos and the Headmistress was yelling at Shadowbox to finish her opponent.

It was the older woman's tirade that finally was enough for the young, withdrawn teen who suffered a nervous breakdown and her powers manifested in a new way: transforming herself into a huge creature of shadow that lashed out at the person who had spent the majority of Shadowbox's life subjecting her to untold amounts of mental and physical abuse. The Headmistress still hasn’t' been seen since that time, some suspect that when the shadow creature swallowed her whole that she was transported to the Shattenwelt somehow (though this is purely educated assumptions). Despite that many of the Alpha team ended up being sent to Blackstone prison the rest kept their freedom thanks to Sandra's efforts and in recognition of her skill and ability Taurus named her as the Headmistress' replacement at the Shadow Academy (of course it was at this point that Sandra was actually introduced to the man-bull for the first time but that's another story in itself). Since then Esper, as Sandra has named herself, has run the Academy as well as the Headmistress ever did. The current Alpha team is composed up of teens that Esper herself recruited and has trained and they are simply waiting for her permission to start testing themselves against the new Next-Gen and prove that they are better than the previous Alpha team.

Complications:Bad Attitude: Darkbolt is known for his cold calculating ways, greed and a mean streak for those that interfere with his plans.

Big Man on the Team: Darkbolt has been with the Shadow Academy longer than anyone else on his team, and because of this he feels that it's something of his responsibility to keep his team working.

Normal Life: Darkbolt's Identity as Thomas Andrews isn't known to any law enforcement agencies.

Background: Darkbolt is considered to be the leader of his team at the Shadow Academy, that is he's the one who is punished the most when the team fails, so he does whatever he can to prevent that from happening. The others members of his team respect him if only for his abilities and skill in using them and if they don't then Darkbolt doesn't hesitate from showing them why they should.

Not that he's really a bully by any means, Darkbolt simply knows his powers and what he can and can't do with them. The fact that he's been at the Shadow Acadmy the longest means that he's worked hard to survive that institution (where failure means brutal punishment) so Darkbolt has worked hard to develop the level of power and control that he does now. It also helps that Darkbolt has an natural aptitude for all things electronic, so much so that other teams at the Academy will outsource to him on computer and electronic related issues they come across. At this point Darkbolt has enough hands on experience to rival a person who has degrees in the same field and could easily support himself in that area of science with little trouble.

He just enjoys the life of a young criminal much more.

When it comes to the other members of his team, Darkbolt will help them in the field as much as he can. Not because he likes them or some other such nonsense, but because if his team fails it's viewed as a failure by those that run the Academy and Darkbolt will be punished for it worse than the offending member of his team. The only members he really gets along with well is Nocturne; they both view their work at the Academy as very serious and both have a workaholic's mentality. But it's Stompa that's the member Darkbolt can't really stand to be around; she's too much of a wild card in his opinion. She'll ignore orders in the field to do as she wants when it suits her, though she does have her uses as Darkbolt has figured out a few ways to play her to get a reaction he wants to a situation.

Last edited by Tattooedman on Sun Feb 09, 2014 2:49 pm, edited 2 times in total.